The Nimbus by Robert P Baird

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Summary

An exhilarating debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood.

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The Nimbus by Robert P Baird

Named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post

A riveting debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood

On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation.

Though it appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the nimbus quickly upends the lives of all those who encounter it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian's broke and feckless graduate student, who likes being a graduate student a little too much for his own good; Renata Bennett, Adrian's omnicompetent wife, who can't see the otherworldly glow; and Warren Kayita, a down-on-his-luck librarian and aging divinity school alumnus on the run from a violent criminal. As news about the nimbus spreads around the university and beyond, Adrian, Paul, Renata, and Warren are set on a collision course that will threaten their lives and put their deepest convictions to the test.

At once a rollicking intellectual satire, a searing portrait of a family in crisis, and a thrilling metaphysical page-turner, The Nimbus offers a comic and profound examination of the persistence of spiritual belief in a secular age and humanity's timeless search for meaning.

Robert P. Baird holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and has worked as an editor at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Esquire, and Chicago Review. He has written for all those publications, as well as for The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Guardian, and Poetry, among others. His work can be found at www.robertpbaird.com.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781250392657
ISBN 10 1250392659
Title The Nimbus
Author Robert P Baird
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Castle Point Books
Year published 2025-06-10
Number of pages 352
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.